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Outline and evaluate the behaviourist approach to explaining phobias
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16 marker for psychopathology
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Describe and evaluate the behavioural approach to explaining phobias (16 marks)The behavioural approach can explain phobias through the two-process model proposed by
Orval Hobart Mowrer (1947). The first stage of this model begins with classical conditioning
and the second stage is operant conditioning. This model is used to explain why phobias
begin and how they are maintained.
Classical conditioning refers to learning through association. It is believed that phobias begin
by associating a neutral stimulus with something fearful. This is illustrated through Watson
and Rayner’s study involving classically conditioning a boy named ‘Little Albert’ to fear white
rats. At the beginning of the study, little Albert showed no fear towards the white rat or any
white furry objects. However, when a steel bar was struck with a hammer repeatedly,
creating a loud noise, every time Little Albert reached out for the rat, Albert started to
associate the loud noise with the white rat, causing a fear response. When little Albert was
presented with the rat and other white furry, he began to cry. They had managed to
condition a fear response to white furry objects in little Albert.
Operant conditioning refers to learning to behave in certain ways due to the behaviour
being reinforced through either a punishment or reward. In terms of phobias, avoidance of
the phobic situations is reinforced by the removal of anxiety. However, avoidance maintains
the fear and preserves the phobia, whereas if someone faced their phobia, they would
begin to realise that it is irrational and harmless.
Alternatively, phobias can also be acquired through social learning due to modelling the
behaviours of others. For example, seeing a parent respond to a spider with extreme fear
may lead a child to acquire that similar behaviour.
A criticism of the behaviourist approach to explaining phobias is that it is considered a
reductionist explanation due to ignoring cognitive and biological factors as an alternative
explanation of phobias. For example, sufferers of claustrophobia may have irrational
thoughts causing them to believe that they will suffocate if trapped inside any confined
space. Thoughts behind the cause of phobias are not taken into consideration in the
behaviourist explanation. Therefore, some behaviours are better explained as an irrational
thought. The cognitive explanation of phobias is strengthened through the success of CBT
therapies on patients with phobias, sometimes being more effective than the behaviourist
treatments. Furthermore, the behavioural approach does not consider biological factors
such as evolutionary factors attempting to protect us, assuming we have a biological
preparedness to rapidly learn an association between potentially life-threatening stimuli
and fear. However, this biological explanation fails to explain why not everyone has the
same phobias, and how some people have completely irrational phobias that aren’t life
threatening at all. As a result, sometimes having a reductionist explanation can help
clinicians to identify cause and effect patterns rather than correlations. This makes the
behaviourist approach more scientific and has consequently led to the development of
therapies such as systematic desensitisation that has helped to tackle the behaviourist
causes.
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